Slice the tomatoes very, very thin

Sandwiches. I could live on sandwiches, and sometimes do. Also I enjoy experimenting with them.

I’ve been trying to perfect what I call my thin tomato and smeared avocado sandwich. I’ll think of a snappy name for it if it turns out to be successful. What got me started on this was flavorless tomatoes. The stores offer pretty, flaw-free tomatoes now but their flavor is not so hot. In fact, if you thick-slice one to include in a sandwich, the rind is tough and that hurts the texture and there’s little tomato taste. I tried sharpening our best kitchen knife and slicing a tomato super-thin, and putting several layers in a sandwich. This seems to release more tomato juice, resulting a more moist and flavorful product.

Also in the stores are lots of small avocadas, often priced way under a buck each. Get ’em at the right stage of ripeness and one of those litttle sweethearts will go well on a sandwich with those thin slices of tomatoes. I dig the goody out of the avocado rind with a tea spoon and smear it on the bread, and then stack on the tomato. I use 12-grain bread and mayo. I had such a tomato for supper just a while ago, with sliced turkey for meat. But it would have been good without any meat at all.

Dern hale, I can’t believe the porchistas haven’t been all over this one. My name for your samich would be tomacado.
But no I haven’t had a really good sandwich in quite a while. Doc says I’m supposed to keep off the packaged meat and ham cause it has so much salt in it, so that pretty much cuts me out of the sandwich market. I used to really like a good German wurst with some good cheese and hot mustard, but like I said Doc says “No!” so…………
Every once in a while Denny’s will buy me breakfast and I’ve done a pretty fair breakfast sandwich off that deal. Start with rye bread toasted, a slice of country ham, two eggs over medium hard (yeller gooey but not runny), and some mayo (I prefer Miracle Whip but they don’t have that). Pretty good for breakfast or whenever.
Best to all

Wow! May I respectfully submit HALES TASTY/HASTY TOM-A-CADO” SANDWICH?
As to my sandwiches, iceberg, tomato, thin sliced pickel, American cheese, salami or baloney either way, with mustard on one slice of white bread and mayo on t’ other. Now that pickel MUST be Mount Olive zesty garlic, sliced thin. Larrupin!
We went to Ms Rathers new place, the Pink Pig, t’other day and I had an oyster sandwich that was out of this world, the oysters were crispy fried and so fresh they tried to crawl back up after you swollered! A simple sandwich with mayo and finely sliced lettuce, I also had some sweet tater, tater tots that were excellent, they came with a dipping sauce of some sort of tasty berries. This was washed down with a tea that had such a delicate flavor and I’m no fancy tea drinker by any stretch o’ the imagination. It was blackberry/jasmine tea. Hope y’all stop there on your way to Fritztown.

Well, first of all, I haven’t deserted. It was just a inarticulated TTFN.
I’ve really enjoyed catching up on the blogs and comments. I could hardly keep myself from replying to some of those old comments. Like, about Black Draught, castor oil (The chemical WMD ricin comes from castor beans) and mercury . . . Yep. Played with it in 8th grade Science. Home remedy’s (ie’s) using turpentine and kerosene. G’maws administering laxatives. And Leon’s advise on writing a novel. Have you all heard that Woody Guthrie wrote one? Supposedly has a hot sex scene carried out on a bale of hay.

When I was growing up my mother used to make us peanut butter and mayonaise sandwiches, only it was Miracle Whip rather than real mayonaise. To this day I still like that sandwich as a snack on really fresh white bread with a cold glass of milk. My all time favorite, though, has to be a BLT made with leaf lettuce and a tomato fresh from the garden. That also qualifies as my favorite summer breakfast.

LH: Or place the tomato slice on the bread and stack the avocado slices on top of the tomato and call it an avomato sandwich. Add a little salsa and call it a guacamato.

My favorite sandwich is the Reuben from a good deli. I have never been able to make a decent reuben, so I am at the mercy of commercial preparers. Alfred’s Deli in Houston used to make a fantastic Reuben, but I havent had one of theirs in 25 years. I don’t even know if Alfred’s still exists. The best I’ve had in recent years was at Karl’s At The Riverbend, on FM 723 between Richmond/Rosenberg and Fulshear, but sadly it lost its lease and closed in December. Decent fast food chain sources are Arby’s and Schlotzsky’s, although Schlotzsky’s is not a true Reuben, but is a pastrami and swiss on dark rye. Still a good sandwich. Any recommendations for a good Reuben?

My favorite that I make myself is goose liver (braunschweiger, not foie gras) and mayo on rye. A close second is sliced summer sausage with lettuce, tomato, mustard and sweet pickle relish on wheat or rye.

Last time I checked,eons ago, the Alfreds on Stella Link was gone. It was one of my haunts in high school. They had the best corned beef sandwich I’ve ever put in my mouth. Never have found any deli that could compare.

Alfred’s closing should have been considered an illegal act. His son ran Kahn’s deli in The Village for years. Same great Reubens. he sold out and i have not been there since so i cannot say one way or the other. Kenny & Ziggies supposedly does a great job. Reubens are a long way from health food. Too much salt, too much fat, too many calories, too damn good.

On Hillcroft, just a block down from Braeswood, there was a small deli called Zinnantes. Wondreful sandwiches, all made fresh and so good, that my two kids would not eat any other po’boy unless it came from Zinnantes. It was all fresly sliced cold cuts, pastrami and cheeses. They used the freshest breads, lettuce, pickels and tomatoes…….then the old folks passed away and the kids took over. Day old bread, limp lettuce, all the cheeses and cold cuts were pre sliced and left to dry out in the cooler…

I LOVE sandwiches! Like Smitty, I have to watch sodium. Cheese & processed meat are both high in sodium. Often I use whole wheat pita bread & whole wheat pita pockets, or whole wheat/whole grain tortillas to make wraps or tacos. We also use those thin multi grain sandwich rounds. Rotisserie chickens usually have quite a bit of sodium, but if you throw away the skin, you get rid of a lot of the salt. I start with mayo that has several hot sauces mixed in, including chipotle. I put a thin layer on a large warm tortilla, add some whole grain rice, shredded red cabage, rotissery chicken or a grilled fish filet (tilipia or another firm flesh fish), sliced grape or cherry tomatos (currently, they have the best flavor) & sometime cilentro, sliced red bell pepper, avacado, &/or sliced hot banana pepper. Then I add a little more red cabbage with a tad of the spicy mayo.

Forget store-bought tomatoes, unless you slice them thin like you suggest. One of my all-time favorite sandwiches is an onion sandwich, with mayo and sharp cheddar cheese on it. Sounds awful, but it’s good!

The village shop around the corner sells cheese and onion sandwiches, with “Branston Pickle” — an English recipe which was apparently made in Heaven just to go on cheese and onion sandwiches. (Branston pickle is to England what Tabasco is to Louisiana.) Look for Branston Pickle in Houston at some of those British Import places like “British Isles” in the Village. Worth the trip, and I promise you will be addicted for life. (Ask friends and family to give you bottles for Christmas.)

Raven,
Although we have been out of England long enough to have lost almost all cravings for English food items, Branston Pickle still has a place in our menu with cheese, as you say. It is so far divorced from the pickles here that I think it must be an acquired taste.The stores owned by Indians (from India, not native Americans) usually stock some English specialities, including U.K. made Cadbury’s chocolate, which is different to the American made variety Cadbury brand. When I checked some time ago, that was a Hershey product.

the bear does not like fresh, vine ripe tomatoes or pickles (does not like the way they feel in his mouth, he says) so the only time I get a tomato is if we order out at a burger place, or if I get something from subway… honestly, my favorite sammich is peanut butter on cheese slices…

I like me some sandwiches! The bread makes a big difference. Rye, pumpernickel, Italian, French. On the Italian and French, slice it on a big bias so you get bigger slices, sometimes lightly toasted on one side! Romain lettuce instead of iceberg, Brunswieger, smoked ham, horseradish mixed in with the Miracle Whip (try it, great!), big ole sack of fresh potato chips, sweet or dill pickles, hot mustard, sharp chedder cheese, Swiss cheese. Oh, yeah, and some thin sliced cardboard tomatoes, unless you are one of those exceptional people that can grow your own.

I know that is prolly a run on….incomplete….. upside down sentence, but when I am “on a roll” I don’t like being confined by grammatical rules. LOL

Oh,yeah, when making a grilled cheese, try mixing fresh minced rosemary with the REAL butter…a whole new dimension in grilled cheese!

I could go on with wood grilled hamburgers (which I consider a sandwich) but that would require a ‘nuther whole subject!

I envy you guys who can still eat cheese, which is loaded with salt. I’ve been on a hardly-any-salt diet for more than 20 years, and cheese is what I miss the most. Once in a while I get into some wonderful cheese because I can’t resist it, and I pay — a big spike in my BP.

While taking radiation treatments my appetite is nil. But the other day I had a huge hankering for a grilled cheese. Not like mama made but the one where you slather the bread with real butter, place it in a hot skillet while placing TWO slices of (plastic) cheese on top, and finally on top of all that the other piece of buttered bread. Wait…for the melt and flip the untoasted bread over and see is you can hang on until the bread “toasts”…! Smile. I won’t be doing that again any time soon, but God willing, I’ll live. Big smile.

Now that is my kind of sandwich Red3fish. I don’t eat Mayo because it is bad for my health. The doctor told me I couldn’t eat any of that stuff so I picked Mayo and don’t eat any. Everything else goes for me. I am only 63 and dying so samwiches aren’t doing it to me. I did. But, however, and furthermore, I don’t want to live forever if I can’t eat to live. Dying is easy…

Dang, Sandra and Long Station, sorry to hear of ill health issues. Ole Long Station and I “crossed swords” over guns half a decade ago. No matter. We are all dying, just at different rates. I am like LS though, I am gonna die fat and with a full belly!

I have a couple of things seriously wrong with me too, but not going to doc till it really hurts. I want to be surprised and not worry about it. I am supposed to be on low salt and “if it taste good, don’t eat it”….BS!!

I am going to Brookshires in the next week and get me some pork bellies to cure and smoke here at home….love me some good smoked bacon!! Haven’t had any REALLY good smoked bacon in a couple of decades!!

So, someday one or two of ya, may say “Where is ole R3F? He hasn’t posted in a loooong time. By then I will know THE answer……or not! LOL

Sandra and Ralph: Sonic is currently running an ad campaign featuring a series of grilled cheese sandwiches, one of which is a BLT Grilled Cheese. Sounds promising, but none of their locations in my area seem to have added it to their menu yet.

A good tomato, to me, has a berry-like flavor. Finding a flavorful tomato is a challenge. I buy wheat berries by the 50 pound bag and mill the flour myself. Commercially milled flours are denuded of many fragile vitamins, minerals, nutrients, proteins and oils. Fresh milled wheat flour makes for a highly nutritious bread. I generally make about 4 loaves per week. My family loves homemade bread and I love the fact they are getting the nutrition necessary for optimal performance. Most times the most flavorful foods are also the most nutritious. It’s a bloody shame I am allergic to gluten! Cheers ~

Mr Hale, that sandwich sounds terrific and I’ll have to give it a shot. I’ve just planted some tomatoes – Celebrities. Great for the Houston area. Also planting my new favorite heirloom tomato – Paul Robeson. No more freezes predicted so I should get an early crop.
You are correct about your choice of bread. I haven’t eaten plain white bread in over, um, 30 something years.

For Years from birth until I retired, I enjoyed Miracle whip on every thing, and I mean everything. When I retired we made a mistake and bought mayonnaise wow “I love it”. a good sandwich Lunch meat and Cheese and sliced sweet green peppers. Little bit of onion” don’t like onion much” pickles. whole wheat bread and Mayonnaise. Almost 40 years ago we use to visit a Deli and they made a wonderful sandwich called a Josie. lite rye Bread, Pastrami, chopped chicken livers, a kosher pickle.Mayonnaise Wonderful!

The Olde Tyme Grocery in Lafayette makes a wonderful (& huge) shrimp poorboy (oyster is graer as well. Popeye’s has a good one as well. I might head on over in the next few days to reacquaint myself with one.

I love sandwiches… please make me one of each mentioned above and give me the time to arrive at your place to enjoy it with you.

But like most of you, the diet I’m on doesn’t include anything that tastes good. Dr’s orders, “If it tastes good, spit it out”.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, even if I don’t stick to the diet the way I should.

I’ll have to admit that the venison link sausage from Miiller’s Smokehouse (my deer processor) is too good to pass on when it comes to making a sandwich or hot dog. Not sure of their recipe, but I’ve reached the point that a large portion of every deer goes into that good link sausage.

Tomato: Made with two slices regular sandwich bread, Duke’s mayo (yes, that little bit of vinegar DOES make a difference), very large tomato PEELED (also makes a difference) and sliced about 1/4 inch thick,a little salt and pepper and nothing else.

Onion: Made the same way with either a Noonday, Vidalia or 1015 onion and nothing else.

As part of a report on the just settled dispute with Mexico over tomato pricing, it mentioned that growers in Florida picked their tomato crop green and reddened the fruit with a gas. I’ve also seen photos of green tomatoes being loaded into the bed of a truck that I think were taken in Mexico. If tomatoes can be tossed into a truck without being squashed it is no wonder those evenly red colored things in the stores taste of nothing and have skins like oilcloth.

Gerry, I’m not sure I’d know the difference between those “commercial” tomatoes and a piece of cardboard if I were blindfolded. Then when home grown tomatoes hit the plate those we would have used to comment on as “sort of tasteless” instead tastes as if they were the best ever.

In an ongoing search for a decent bought tomato, I have setteled on grape & cherry tomatos (mostly from Mexico). The best I have found (based on a tip) on a consistant basis are from a dollar store (99 cents only). Go figure

I can’t easily get shrimp or oysters, to make a po-boy, however I make do with baked fish-sticks on 12-grain toast with tartar sauce and a couple leaves of Romaine lettuce and a slice of onion and tomato if the mood takes me. (Best eaten leaning over the sink and washed down with Shiner dark beer)

A remedy for tasteless tomatoes: take two or three big tasteless beauties, cut them in half crossways, put the halves on a baking tin and drizzle olive oil over the tops and sprinkle with basil, dried or fresh. (Salt or pepper is optional and I never use them) Grill or oven cook the oiled halves; (I suppose you could try them in the microwave, though I like the flame-kissed way they pucker) The heat, olive oil, and basil make the sorriest tomato taste civilized. You can eat tuna+mayonaise+pickle-relish with the grilled tomatoes; and it makes a pleasant meal summer or winter.

My favorite is cold rare roast beef with horseradish, tomato and onion on toasted French roll with a little spicy mustard. No processed meat and everything is good for you. When we grill a nice ribeye for dinner, I always cut off about a third of it and put it in the fridge for the next day. When it gets cold, slice it really thin, layer it on some toasted French bread with a little spicy mustard and top with real grated horseradish, vine ripe tomatoes and purple onion. I started eating cold rare roast beef with horseradish when I used to travel to the UK a lot on business and now I can’t get enough of it.

Immediate apology for not having noticed that you do use real horseradish. I was overwhelmed with thoughts of a rare beef and horseradish sandwich and this must have affected my sight as well as making me drool.

The real thing (horseradish) is sometimes hard to find in the grocery store, so when I find it, I cut it up into several smaller pieces and freeze the ones I am not using so I can pull them out later when I have a craving for some. I have decided to try and grow some at the place here in Fayette County this spring. Will let you know how it works out.

Since you asked, yes. I googled and found that Percy Medicine has been made in Texas by a family in Waco since 1900 : her is the story and it is mildly interesting: I also googled the picture on the Percy medicine box, and I suspect that that pore child’s petulant expression has been cheered up in a savvy marketing ploy.

google also tossed up a gratifying article from a medical journal about salycylate poisoning in a small tot because the parents saw the picture of a baby on the box and thought it was OK to pour generous doses of this vile stuff down that defenseless child. Fortunately doctors put the victim in the hospital and kept it away from the parents and the medicine and everything turned out OK

Too bad I didn’t know about that story to show it to my mom when i needed it the most. . . . 😉

We had Mark Portugal sandwiches at the Mucky Duck a few nights ago. Turkey, avocado, cheese, bacon and I don’t know what all, on a crispy French bread roll. Good? Have mercy! If anyone knows how many calories are in one of those things, please don’t tell me.

Grape tomatoes are almost always flavorful, but you’d have to slice a lot of them to make a decent sandwich. The Roma variety can be pretty good when they’re ripe.

Some people really like to pile it on and make Dagwood-style sandwiches, but not I. I want a sandwich I can get my mouth around. Those creations that are a purlicue high are far too tall for my taste, About half that height is max for me. And I like to have a scrap of bread left at the end so as not to waste any droppings on the plate.

My wife & kids love peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. I do not. My wife also likes meat loaf sandwiches. I never tried one. I knew someone who would take 2 pieces of white bread, put on a thick layer of Miracle Whip & a thick slice of onion. That was his sandwich. When I was a kid, we made sandwiches the same way but substituted a very thick slice of lettuce for the onion.
When I worked road construction in HS, we needed something that wouldn’t go bad from the heat. That usually meant one or more of the following: rat cheese, summer sausage, salami, balony, or Vienna sausage. One guy would bring fried egg sandwiches. From time to time, I made sandwiches from a thick slice of salami between 2 moon cookies. About 4 of those + some fresh fruit made a quick & filling meal. Tasted good as well.
Quiznos has a great chicken/chipolte sandwich, my favorite chain sandwich. We also like those grilled chicken wraps from McDonalds.

Raven: Moon cookies are different from Moon Pies. The cookies were sold loose in country stores for a penny each. They were large (3 or 4 inches in diameter), a vanilla taste, no icing, thin. Usually they were kept in a large, clear, cookie jar. The old glass jars, are now worth something. Glass jars were replaced with plastic containers in the early 50s. My uncle sold 3 types of penny cookies, but moon cookies accounted for about 80% of sales. The Little Brownie cookie man drove a panel truck and brought a full load 3 times a week. It’s hard to believe that a store made money selling those penny cookies. They had to be bagged by hand.

Moon Pies are great as well. I think there was a country song about Moon Pies and R.C. Cola.

Hmmm Ralph, Betcha one of the three cookies sold were those gigantic(6 inches tall at least) Windmill cookies that were SOOOOO good! All for a PENNY! They give away a poor example of those cookies at my bank, only thier cookies are about two inches high by an inch and a half wide…….Poo!
There was a cookie company a couple of blocks east of Houston Ave, call Shelbys Cookies…good cookie! We kids would go in for a penny cookie but then we discovered that they had bags full of BROKEN cookies for a NICKEL! What a find, it rivaled the 15 cent day old pies at the Bamma Pie company on Washington Ave!

I have never liked tomatoes. I don’t know why. I will eat them in a sandwich or salad. But, I don’t like em. I’ve seen folks bite into them like a peach. To me they are not a peach. Just something in a salad.

When I was studio assistant to artist Sharon Kopriva, she and her husband Gus and I used to go out to lunch in the Heights sometimes and order sandwiches.
They hated tomatoes and removed them from their sandwiches and salads. I was the designated tomato eater, because as I never tired of telling them. it is a sin to waste good food. They used to enjoy my tomato-eating, and ask if I would eat liver to keep it from going to waste?
I said letting liver go to waste wasn’t a sin because it wasn’t good food in my books.

Sandwiches always make a good meal and depending on what you put on them can be very nutritious. I have a special knife Jim bought that is sort of like a bread knife but has even finer teeth. I can cut tomatoes paper thin. We don’t buy a lot of processed lunch meats but when I fix a roast, chicken or turkey breast, we’ll have plenty left for sandwiches for several days. Whole grain, rye or pumpernickel breads, paper thin tomato and red onion slices, leaf lettuce, the meat, cheese if used and condiments of choice make a very nice sandwich. Occasionally I will get a taste for a hog’s head cheese or olive loaf sandwich so will buy Boar’s Head meat from the deli at Bill’s. In the summer when real tomatoes are plentiful we also make BLT’s. Never go to those sandwich places like Subway, etc. And to die for are the oyster po boys in NOL. Will even take a sardine sandwich on buttered bread with paper thin red onions. And don’t forget to put a mug of milk in the freezer while you put together your PB&J sandwich. Love it ice cold. Blessings.

It’s great to see you posting again!
My wife prefers a small bladed tomato knife like you describe. My preference is a Sabatier roast beef slicer that stays razor sharp. (It is a model where the blade is kind of rusty looking.) It will slice anything very thin. I start at the bottom of the tomato & work up toward the stem. I bought the knife in a Tuesday morning about 25 years ago. I was looking at several and a customer handed me this one and a large butcher knife, each around $30. He said he was a chef & said the knives he handed me were professional grade that normally cost around $150 each. We own a bunch of knives, including some other Sabatiers, but these are by far the best two I own, athough I don’t use the large butcher knife nearly as much.

1. Leon, you’e over 90 years old. Food ain’t gonna kill you. I recommend you eat all the ice cream, bisquits and gravy etc you can get your hands on. Have a few beers and a shot of whisky and/or tequila. Dance the night away, listening to something you have always loved. Call your children and irritate them (and then tell them that you love them).

2. Pretty much any sandwich can be improved by adding some thin sliced avacado to it. Then sprinkle some salt on the ‘cader slices. Will make even a tuna sandwich much better. Sliced is better than mushed. Most of my avacados get eaten on the half shell with a sprinkling of salt, with a spoon.

Brian — Thanks for the advice in your Part 1. For the last 40 years I’ve had friends telling me not to bother over what the doctors say. “Go ahead,” they said. “Drink, eat whatever you want, just like we do.” Funny thing. Almost every one of those guys are dead, and I’m still here.

Well, one the of the best sandwiches ever invented has to be BLT. I have had them all over but the best are the ones you make yourself. The tomato issue has been well documented above, but good tomatoes are essential. Although somewhat unconventional, some thin sliced avacado can really make a BLT special (sprinkle of salt on the ‘cader slices). You might be tempted to add onions, but don’t. Lots of mayo. Tater chips & a good beer. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Long Station & R3F, I sure hate to hear of your health issues. In late October, i found out I had a heart flutter (did not show up a month earlier). They put me on a very expensive pill (a blood thinner) & told me to quit caffeine, salt, and alcohol. I’ve been on reduced salt for years, drink only small amounts of red wine (cut that by 50%) & allow myself 2 caffeien drinks a day. (I was drinking 10-12 diet Cokes + 3 or 4 coffees.) The cutting caffeine has really helped me lose weight because I don’t snack as much. Now I sleep too much.

I like the Swiss cheese with the big holes in it, not the fancy dancy little lacy holes….and I get them to slice it nearly 1/8″ thick!

I keep the kitchen knives sharp, and touch up with a “steel” every time I put them away….my regular knives will shave off a ripe tomato….or roll hair on your arm.

I FORGOT THE ONIONS in my original post!! Thin or thick, white, yellow, purple,or green. All onions now are too mild for me, I really like the old hot, make you cry Bermuda onions. A couple of shoots of crisp green onions go well with a sandwich.

When you empty your dill pickle jar, quarter up some onions (white or yellow) and fill it up. In a few weeks, you have pickled onions to go with a sandwich!

I told someone (BJ?)last year I would remind them that the Noonday onion starters ought to be here about now. Buddy called me from the lakehouse yesterday, (Flint, Tx), but I forgot to ask him to go by and see if the starters were there….prolly are.

Had a muffaletta out near Ellington Field the other day that was out of this world. But lately, I’ve been craving fried Spam sliced thick on toasted wheat with some mustard, lettuce, tomatoes and pickles.

This restaurant, http://www.abescajunmarket.com/, is near Ellington. I’ve enjoyed every meal I have eaten there. There is a large spreading tree (faux) in the dining room. They carry season meats and other Cajun items as well.

Abe’s started out with a Cajun grocery store on the east side of Lake Charles. I would stock up on Mellow Joy Coffee & boudain there before heading back to Houston. I prefered his boudain to that from the Boudain King in Jennings (who served the best fried oysters on earth but are not the same since he left this world). Last week I stopped by Abe’s and found they had closed the grocery but kept part of the building open to sell boudain and other cajun meat products. It was a hard sell to myself, but I didn’t even go inside as a favor to my heart and blood vessels.

My wife introduced me to a beef tongue sandwich. It was good, we ate beef for just about every meal when I growing up on the farm but never ate the tongue. For those that have not tried, it is not bad, sliced thin and put on bread with mustard or mayo. How many remember the “beef clubs”in the country. Several families would get together and butcher a calf and divide the meat about once a month.

My folks shared beeves with two of Dad’s brothers and families. All rented a “locker” (pull out drawer) from a meat market/locker company and split the beeves three ways. Ralph W. I think my folks were forced to buy a home freezer when the meat locker company shut down. I suppose enough of their customers had already purchased home freezers and that law of demand or lack thereof shut them down.

TONGUE??? SWMBO is in Atlanta with our new Grand baby so now’s a good time for me to buy a yummy tongue! Mmmmm.. Lengua sandwiches! I forgot about that one! Thanx, and a tip ‘o the Hatlo hat to ye Clem! 😉

Best NY deli I’ve found is Kenny & Ziggy’s on Post Oak Blvd in the Galleria. The corned beef is great but my fave is the pastrami on rye. They make an excellent Rueben but bring a friend. The sizes here are on the huge side.

Since no one mentioned the egg sandwich, I will. I likea soft fried egg (no runny yellow) on wheat bread with Hellman’s mayo and a dash of Tabasco. I like cheese so a slice of American or Swiss might be added.

Sorry to be late with my comments but doctors’ appointments got in the way.

Long Station: I think you have won the best name for a dog, “Stop Sign”. It beats one of our dauchounds, name “Tammy Fay Barker”. The dog is fawn colored with long black lashes & edges around his eyes. He looks like he is wearing mascara (sp).

I appreciate all of the Porch Pals thoughts because I do believe we are friends of a sort. However, don’t cry for me. Like I said, I did it to myself. Leon took his Dr.’s advice. I didn’t, don’t, and won’t. I have drank all of the expensive booze I could afford and way to much cheap stuff to mention. I have eaten in every five star restaurant that would serve me and I ate off the top of the menu. I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and while I no longer smoke left-handed cigarettes, back in the day I had all I could buy. My cemetary plot is paid for, my children are grown, and after they harvest all of my parts that are still usable, I will go straight in the ground with no regrets.
P.S. R3F, I don’t mind guns, I love them and own a bunch. I just don’t like ending life.

Hang in there you guys & Sandra. It ain’t over ’till it’s over. Know that there’s a crowd here that care & offer whatever support we can. When I had a cancer my family gave up on me makin’ it. I’ve been cancer free now over ten years.

The cat and I do not eat that stuff, but Thorena does. He and I will settle down to brown foods sometime around five o’clock in the afternoon.
Sometime after 6:00 she will drive in and open a loaf of rye bread. Both me and the cat just know if it is black and doesn’t taste good, you don’t eat it. Thorena does.
Then she will pull out an avocado. It is green, so we don’t eat that either. She does.
Then she will pull out an onion. The cat and I learned in our childhood that digging things up out of the ground and sticking it in your mouth was not a good idea. She does.
And she continues on with other green things like cilantro and cabbage and lettuce and parsley and celery and then some garlic.

And she sits down and her eyes turn up on the outside like when she is giving the cat a bath or digging around in my finger for a splinter, and she eats it right there in front of us. Then she breaths on us and her breath comes in waves and she tells us we are getting sleepy, whether we are or not.
I don’t know what she does after that.

Speaking of “her breath comes in waves” after eating a sandwich, it reminds me of grade school and one of the guys that loved liverwurst sandwiches. He would joyfully eat them and then burp liverwurst stinkers on me. **shudder** Still can’t stand to see that stuff… talk about nasty, stanky smells! Guess they would call that bullying these days.

As to the HOME MADE soup, to MY tastes, it gets better and better as it ages in the refridge and the micro wave oven is the very thing to heat it up. BUT the microwave is a curse on ANY type of bread that you try to warm up, it kills the flavor in the bread. Gimme aluminum foil wrap in a low temp oven….slow, but a better tasting finished product.

One of my favorites is a fried egg with a slice of honey baked ham, cheese, mayo, lettuce and tomato. But tomorrow, my friend John and I are driving up to Sherman to Hucks’ and eat the best fried catfish you can find in Texas. If you are ever near there, Go!

Sandra, LS, R3F ~ I am sorry you’re facing serious health issues. It goes without saying, I hope you all take really good care. I know, I know – the guys have pretty much said they’ll go out with a bang, but I hope you’ll take some care. I really look forward to all your posts!

Yes, I’ve had some really good sandwiches, lately! Growing up, I’d eat the food that was on my plate and save the meat (whatever it was) and put it between my bread to make a sandwich…I still do that at times. One porch pal mentioned not having mayo till he was retired and found he likes it..I didn’t have mayo till I was probably 25 or more and I love it too, unfortunately…so many calories. I love baloney, blt’s, grilled cheese, and if I knew this to be my last day on earth, I’d probably have a hamburger. Definitely a hamburger

Buy the cheapest hamburger you can with lots of fat in it (80/20). It tastes the best. I form it into a patty (1/2 lb) about 7″ across…that way when grilled it will shrink to the size of the bun, and you get meat with every bite. Build a hot coal fire, with a little wood in it and toss on meat, garlic salt and fresh ground pepper only…don’t be shy here.

Cook hot and fast, til a hot pink, maybe a little red, inside and take off, it will still cook for a min. or so. If your fire doesn’t flare up a little, it isn’t hot enough. Butter big buns that have sesame seeds on it and put face down on grill…check often, it only takes a min. or so. The secret to a great hamburger is that toasted bun…even if it has a little char on it….tastes great!

Add all the other “stuff” you like on it…serve HOT right off the grill!! Some folks like cheese, pickled jalapenos, BBQ sauce, sliced pickles etc. etc. Have it YOUR way! ONE of these hamburgers fill up the most hungry in my crew!

R3F: We have gradually moved to 93/7 hamburger from Randalls. We love it. In fact, we just had burgers my wife made this evening. She grills them on Pam coated foil, on a JennAir grill. She also toasts the buns. Her burgers are better than mine because mine are too thick + she puts an egg or two in with the meat. I like my burger with a light coat of mayo on one bun, a coat of Koops Arizona Heat mustard on the other, a lot of tomato & mild onions, Romaine lettuce & slices of fresh hot banana peppers.

Just east of my place on HW 105 is a C store that makes the world’s best burgers. They are huge, cost a little under $5 with tax, & worth every cent. NEVER order a double! The folks who started the burger cooking sold out to a family from Pakistan a couple of years ago. Thankfully they have not changed anything. People from across the pond know about this place. I have done real well on my diet (ate there only twice since September). That isn’t easy, but my wife is always along to monitor my diet.

You guys have taken to talking about sandwiches this week? I make myself a decent tuna fish salad sandwich with hard boiled eggs and dill relish and mayonnaise. It’s funny that people who can’t spell their own names know how to spell mayonnaise. That’s a white bread sandwich. Favorite wheat bread is roast beef or turkey and the usual trimmings with lots of mayonnaise.

Lately we’ve been cooking all our weekend meals in a cast iron oven with coal on the lid and everything we eat is extra tasty and frankly we’re growing spoiled by the flavor. For casseroles we line the oven with foil so nothing sticks. Those old Voortrekkers had the right idea. When the broken down wheelbarrow gets turned into a grill with a concrete bed we’re going to get a big potjie cauldron. Cook on Sunday, eat for a week.

Sandwiches are okay. Stew is better.

Hope everyone here is feeling better. Oatmeal, grapefruit and orange juice will keep you going no matter what life throws around. Oatmeal and good sleep.

Cooking in cast iron, especially Dutch Ovens, is a whole ‘blog, and you don’t want to get me started cause I will write too much.
My current favorite healthful soup is quite simply a head a chopped up celery boiled with lentils (they cook in 10 minutes, unlike beans) and flavored with bullion stock of any kind, including salt-free. You can throw in anything else you like, but don’t need to.

About the ice house/locker plant,my folks rented a locker in town and every Saturday we would go into town to buy/charge our bill of groceries for the week. We would go by the locker plant and get our meat for the week. I loved walking in because of the cold on real hot days. That trip always included me going to the movies to see the latest shootem up or Tarzen movie while the folks visited and shopped up and down the street. When the locker plant closed Dad got some of those steel lockers to use as storage cabinets on the farm. I still have one of the ice picks from that ice house and the telephone number on the ice pick only has four numbers.

Dad & Mom rented a locker in Brenham. (Freeze-it-all) I loved going in there because someone had a huge locker he kept full of large red snappers. They wern’t packaged but appeared to have been sprayed with water & frozen in a coat of ice. The stock of fish would rotate & some times there would be other types. And I loved the cold. REA had just about the entire county on electricity when home freezers came out. One thing that helped the move from beef clubs was that almost every club had someone who always butchered the porrest animal on the place.

JT, Ditto on the Saturdays. Without electricity we had a true “ice box” with delivery a couple of times a week. We had the ice pick but I have no idea if it had a telephone number on it as it would have meant nothing at our house.

We did have another purpose for the locker. We always raised about 100 fryers and take most of them to a poultry processing house for killing and dressing. They would go in the freezer until winter.

Of course we kept several on the farm and killed them ourselves as needed throughout the summer. I loved to watch that machine that plucked the chickens. I guess because it was always my job to pluck them at home. Nothing like a wet scalded chicken smell and the joy of handfuls of wet feathers. ;(

Ahh yes, the ice man! He’d walk into the house, showing his superhuman strength by shouldering a gigantic block of ice on his leather protected back. Once in the door, we kids would storm the back of his truck, to “STEAL” slivers of cold ice on a summers day. The ice man would come out and yell “HEY! STOP STEALING ALL MY ICE! And we would all flee down the street with our cold treasure, wishing we had fill both hands with bigger chunks.

There it was. Even if I wanted to go in the water to cool off, the humidity here would not allow the cooling process to work. Plus, I have heard that there are leeches in these swamps.

The boards that we are removing from the mud will be used on the next location, not counting the ones that splinter and break under the assault of several six foot pry-bars.

So far this morning we have turned over 10 boards and routed over 50 water moccasins.

James and Robert both have a lot of growing up to do and have spent most of the morning calling each other the vilest names they can think of. They are now actively rolling in the mud trying to scare the other into defeat. The funny wore off a couple of hours ago.

A dollar an hour seems inadequate, but then again a case of beer is only two dollars and a tank of gas is only 3 dollars. 12 hours today and 12 hours tomorrow (Sat. & Sun.) will look mighty good next Friday.

My bologna and cheese sandwich melted on the dashboard and is now turning over in my stomach. My hangover seems to be intensifying, if that is possible.

Job one; Some of these jobs may be out of order, but this is the way I remember it.
1. After Lunch Milk Bottle Stacker…WISD …
• No Free Lunch back then, twenty cents per day equaled a dollar a week (Dad was bedridden with an oilfield injury and money was scarce). We were marched single file to the lunchroom for my favorite time of the day. I loved lunch in the first grade. They would let a growing boy have seconds if he asked politely. When everyone else marched out to the playground for recess, I stayed behind and stacked the half pint glass milk bottles (regular or chocolate). This meant that I got to the playground five minutes later than everyone else but in those days it gave me a good deal of prestige. I had a job. I was somebody. All the kids wanted to be my friend. This was also about the time my friend Ricky (He was older because he had been held back) showed me how to jiggle the handle after you had put your nickel in the candy machine and you could empty the row of peanuts. They also had Bit’O Honey, Coconut bars that were striped red, white and blue, Red Hots, and lemon drops.
2. Cotton picker…Chester, Texas…
• Paw Longstation paid $1.00 per hundred pounds picked. We rode out to the field in a wagon pulled by his two mules, “Kit and Jake”. Haw…Gee.. Those blamed cotton sacks were nine feet long
3. Somewhere in here I was introduced to South Louisiana and Toki’s Lounge.
• Those golden liquid tapered glasses full of ice cold beverages that were bubbling with goodness sure did look good to a seven year old boy. The sound of clacking pool balls haunts me still.

Eli: Other than the moon cookies, one was a coconut bar and the other changed from week to week, sometimes windmill cookies, sometimes lemon cookies. You mentioned fried pies. I don’t know of a good fried pie sold in this area. I’ve noticed all kind of cup cakes & items similiar to Hostess products since Hostess shut down. A baker at Randalls told me they hardly sold any of that stuff UNTIL the brand shut down. All of a sudden, a lot of folks wanted stuff they hadn’t eaten or even thought about in 30 years.

Z.’s deli on Hilcroft, ate there often. Kids did ok for a while, but they didn’t put the love into their food their parents did.

The thing that really BUGGED me about Hostess, is that they used to cost a NICKEL! Two real big cupcakes for five cents! Then. they put some white stuff inside and DOUBLED the price! Poo!
If memory serves, those big windmill cookies had a cinnemon taste!

Ralph,
if you want good fried pies/sammiches go out to Katy and look for Marini’s Empanada house. I found this joint back when they were in an old converted house down deep on Westheimer back in the 70’s. They were as bad as Baskin Robbins for selection back then. They must’ve had about 50 different kinds back then. My favorite was the steak and kidney in wine sauce. And then for desert there was something with bananas or another with blueberries.
At one point they moved/expanded to Sharpstown mall and like I said they are now out near Katy.
Sadly the menu I saw on their website only lists a few items, but I’d be willing to bet they are still darn good.
For those who are wondering an empanada is basically a fried pie filled with just about anything that the Argentine gauchos carry in their saddlebags when out on the ranges. Much better than hardtack and jerky……and if good enuf that still ain’t bad!
Best to all and especially to those who are ailing.

Smitty: Like you, I’ve followed Marini all over. he also has a place on Westheimer (Westchase area). Our favorite is the one with ice cream, walnuts, carmel, cinnamon & apples. Due to a need to knock off some more pounds, I won’t be there for a while. But the fried pies I was thinking about were made by small companies & sold at soda fountins, c-stores, & neighborhood grocery stores. They were not iced like the junk from the big bakers. Those small guys are mostly gone although there is a decent pie made in Ft. Worth & another made in Lubbock. But neither is as good as the Barrett pies that were made in Beaumont.

Hey Larry, We did not have a phone until I was gone from home. I was a senior in high school the first time I ever talked on the phone. I was scarced to death. Speaking of the locker plant, we would go in sometimes and there would be some big yellow cats hanging up. I was amazed. We always raised that many fryers, dressed them and put them in the locker. It was my mom and me that had to do the dirty work. It was funny dad did not get involved. Mom had it down to where we would lay the chickens down with a hoe handle across their neck and pull up. I did not enjoy this or the plucking of them but sure did like that fried chicken every Sunday after church.

My favorite sandwich is kind of a Turkey Ruben. Growing up in the German town of Cincinnati, my family always prepared sauerkraut to go with Thanksgiving dinner.

1. Take 2 pieces of white bread and slather them both with some Miracle Whip.
2. Take some leftover stuffing and put 1/2 inch layer of stuffing on one of the slices of bread.
3. Add a couple of thin slices of that leftover turkey breast,
4. Now cover it with sauerkraut, and that 2nd piece of bread.

Remember to wring out the sauerkraut a little first. Otherwise it gets the bread too soggy.

Nowadays, I make it a little bit healthier by using whole-wheat bread. But it’s still my favorite sandwich of all times.

To this day, I serve homemade sauerkraut whenever I roast a turkey. I have had to do a lot of explaining over the years to my holiday dinner guests.

Many of you have wondered why I always cook such a big turkey dinner. Now you know……. it’s for the leftover sandwiches!